How to make users go ‘whoa’

Sari Azout’s contrarian playbook for building breakthrough products with soul

What if ‘MVP culture’ isn’t the best way to blow someone’s minds? In this current hype-fixated attention economy, startups have been quick to launch a half-baked product & iterate over time. Look no further than the latest reviews from Humane & Rabbit. 

So what’s an alternative approach? How do you make users go 'whoa’ in the best way possible?

This week, we sat down with Sari Azout, founder of Sublime, a multiplayer, personal knowledge management type tool. In our conversation with Sari, she unpacks her product development philosophy, explains why a creative vision takes precedence over problem-solving, & walks us through the role *vibes* play in building her brand. 

Elan: One of the things I first noticed about you was your bio on X stating that you care about ideas. Would love to go deep about what that really means for you.

Sari: Everything that you see in the world—whether it's a tool or a story—first existed as a seed in someone's mind. And I think that people often assume that ideas are something that you get, like a diamond, or something like that.

But the truth is that ideas are something that you grow. You plant an idea seed and then you nourish it, and then some parts kind of wither and die off, but then a tree suddenly starts to grow in this random place.

And so I think of ideas as these fragile things that need time to grow and fully blossom. So much of Sublime’s ethos is about giving ideas that context, that frame, the time to grow and marinate, if that makes sense.

Elan: Why do you think ideas in general feel so contrarian in the world of tech? It’s refreshing to hear somebody talk about the value of ideas; over the last 10 years, it feels like ideas have become secondary to execution.

Sari: You know, I think it's because ideas are the opposite of efficiency, right? You can't really account for—in an execution sense—a breakthrough moment that requires wandering. We live in a world where everything needs to be quantified and it's about productivity and efficiency and oftentimes those things are at odds. But I truly do believe that we have to take creativity and productivity and efficiency and invention seriously because we have no competitive advantage over robots when it comes to efficiency, quantity, and productivity. For example, there's just no way I can write faster than ChatGPT. But if I let an idea marinate long enough I suspect I'll be able to come to something that is far more original and interesting. It does take time and a shift in what we value and how we value.

Elan: I'm curious, what is your philosophy when it comes to building products?

Sari: I don't know if this is contrarian or not, but I really do believe in intuition over data and I also really believe in going slow. And I mean this in many respects. These philosophies have definitely influenced how I’m thinking about Sublime. 

What I mean by intuition over data is: Henry Ford wasn't doing focus groups to see if people would prefer cars over horses. Alexander Graham Bell wasn't worrying about whether people would prefer to speak to each other on the phone or not. 

These are just things that they intuitively grasped via observation and response. I think it's very easy to fall into a ‘death by committee’ way of building products. The vision has to emerge. And of course, there's a flexible path to getting there. But I just don't think you can build a product by getting everyone's consensus view on what you should add and then tying all of those different views together.

Elan: What’s an example of that philosophy coming into play? 

Sari: So right now, obviously everyone's talking about AI. And so the easiest, most obvious thing for a product like Sublime would be to take the sparkly AI wand icon that every app is using, slap it on the product, and then that'd be like an open prompt thing where you get all of these crazy prompts and the UI sort of patterns around that are emerging.

But if we do that really fast, it doesn't give us time to think about what is a uniquely ‘Sublime’ way of leveraging AI. How is this going to offer utility for this specific product? It's an exercise we're going through right now and, you know, after weeks of deliberating, we end up landing somewhere that is very different from where we would have landed if speed was the number one thing we value.

I believe that the speed at which you build something is also the speed at which it can get destroyed. Sublime is not just a product – it's a journey, a community, a point of view on productivity and meaning. These things take time to develop but they also are more valuable over time so I think that this idea of going slow—which is very contrarian—is actually a deeper moat than it gets credit for.

The last thing is just like being anti-hype in a way where you still understand the cultural zeitgeist but you don't have to completely fall into it. The trick is getting to a point where you can exist comfortably without tapping into every micro trend. You have to know what trends are right for you and what trends are not right.  

Elan: How do you find the courage to build slowly, thoughtfully, & intentionally in a world that pushes speed in and hype everywhere?

Sari: If I wanted to just be optimizing for a quick hit, my life would look very different. But what I'm creating is an infinite game for myself that I want to play for a very long time. So I optimize for joy. Otherwise, I'm going to burn out and not want to do this anymore. And if that happens, then what's the point?

It also pays to be contrarian. There's just so much noise that if you don't approach something with a different twist or point of view, then I also think it's harder to stand out.

So even though we are ‘going slow’ we’re compounding, we're feeling the momentum. I do think that this approach also allows us to earn the trust and respect of our community in a way that's going to let us continue to play the infinite game for a long time.

Elan: Let’s dive into Sublime. What are you building and why is it a big deal?

Sublime is the first personal knowledge management type tool that is also multiplayer. Our users describe it as “a second brain with a heart”, or “a modern version of Evernote, but with good taste and you’re not alone.” We are combining the focus, utility, and intentionality of a tool for you with the sense of aliveness and serendipity of a social space.

As humans, our memory is limited. We are best at creativity and connecting ideas, but our memory is fundamentally limited. Whether you are a consultant, a strategist, a builder, a founder, a writer, or a researcher, your job is to have good ideas. So, Sublime is like a home, a living library for all the interesting things that you come across and want to later use in your life and work.

At a more profound level, Sublime is resonating for people who feel like there is a better way to be on the internet. 

If you think about Marshall McLuhan's medium as the message, what was the message of TV? That everything has to be entertaining. What's the message of Twitter? Everything has to be really short and condensed so that people understand it immediately. What is the message of AI potentially? In an extreme sense it's that you don't matter, that somebody else that is not human can replace your essence.

The message of Sublime has something to do with embracing nuance and gray areas and deliberation and slowness, right? When I add something to my Sublime library, I'm not saying ‘I believe in this.’ I'm saying, ‘This is a part of my mental map that I need to be paying more attention to. It’s a seed for something that will connect later in some way, shape, or form.’

There are a lot of people who really crave an internet that is designed around curiosity, learning, and creativity and less around engagement, virality, and building an audience. So for Sublime, the medium starts to look like an internet that is designed around a completely different set of values, if that makes sense.

Elan: When you set out to build this company, was that the original vision that you had in mind? Is that something that's evolved as you started to build the product and talk to customers?

Sari: What Sublime is today is not something that I could have dreamt of overnight in a napkin, it's been a journey to get here. Everything is a theory until it collides with reality and then everything changes. A lot of the essence of what sparked the journey is still very much there.

When I look back at the sparks that set me off on this journey, I always dreamed of a human-curated search engine for ideas and concepts, and Sublime today reflects what I have found to be the best wedge to getting to this vision.

Even today – at the scale we are at – some people say the level of curation and quality of the content library of Sublime is unmatched.

Elan: What are you thinking about in terms of ‘why now’ for this product?

Sari: I've always subscribed to the Rory Sutherland belief that the opposite of a good idea is also that — a good idea. Today's online landscape is flooded with instant, machine-generated content, and there's a growing yearning for its opposite—a retreat from hyper-optimization and quantification across search and social platforms.

When I think about the ‘why now’, we're responding to the shift from the attention economy to the intention economy. There is a reassessment of the value of attention and a shift towards more intentional engagement with information. Sublime is a software that allows me to play with these values. 

Elan: How do you think about brand at Sublime and what are some of the inputs that have helped you shape it?

Sari: People often have a simplified view of branding, thinking it's just about designing logos and slogans. But in reality, it's about how people perceive you, the range of outcomes they expect from you, and the reputation you build over time.

For Sublime, staying true to our brand means staying within the range of outcomes our community expects of us, given the implicit beliefs Sublime evokes. Our customers trust that we care about simplicity and that we are not going to do anything to compromise the aesthetics of the product. They trust that we are building for sustainability, not growth at all costs. They know we are not going to introduce crazy features designed to hijack our attention. It’s about having a set of beliefs and promises, and not breaking them.

Also the name “Sublime” does so much for us in terms of building the brand. Ultimately, our goal is for this place to feel Sublime – awe-inspiring, intellectually nourishing, creatively inspiring.

Elan: I often think one of the hardest things about positioning a startup is that in the early days when vision is often so distant from the reality of what you offer. How do you play with that tension and work towards that vision?

Sari: Yeah, honestly, this has been my biggest challenge because we initially started describing Sublime as a ‘more human internet.’ And people were like, ‘what does that mean?’

We've learned that starting with a straightforward message like ‘save anything that makes you go, whoa’ on our landing page helps people understand the immediate value (even if it doesn't fully capture our vision). 

In our space, selling benefits over features is tricky. Many productivity tools promise a lot but often underdeliver. They attract the intellectually promiscuous and demo-vulnerable that endlessly dabble in new tools thinking they are one tool away from honing their craft. Things like “be more creative” and “think better” kind of rubbed me the wrong way., etc..). We want people to discover the benefits themselves, rather than us prescribing them. 

Sublime is a product you have to experience to truly understand. Our unique feature, the ability to add a thought, note, article, or idea and immediately see related ideas from other people’s libraries might not sound exciting on paper, but it feels so special when you use it.

We're still learning how to convey this essence effectively, and a part of it is recognizing that language isn't the only tool to community. Just like the iPhone or Notion, not every product finds the perfect tagline. And there are countless ways to communicate what something is beyond words.

Elan: Something that you’ve written about is this idea that there’s two kinds of startups: one that's solving a functional problem, and one that's manifesting a creative vision. What's your take on the distinction between the two? 

Sari: People want to go on a journey. They want to understand what your vision is, not just what problem you’re solving. They're looking for belonging, something to be a part of.

Of course market demand matters. But demand isn’t born out of nothing. Desires are formed. We are all responsible for what one another wants. We need to build a world and then give people reasons to care, beyond fulfilling a need they already know they have.

These opportunities fulfill needs higher up in Maslow's hierarchy and require a different type of founder and mindset—one driven by creativity, taste, and judgment rather than traditional A/B testing.

Elan: What about the folks building infrastructure; developer tools and B2B SaaS products? Is that opportunity there for them as well?

Sari: I would say that humans are storytellers. Whether it's to hire people, to fundraise, to rally customers there's just nothing better than getting behind a good story.

And I just think this applies to absolutely everything. You may be starting an infrastructure company, but there's a bigger story around why this needs to exist. Follow the story, whatever it is. 

Elan: You also recently tweeted ‘Pair a good simple product with a distinctive vibe, and people will talk about you.’ Could you elaborate on that a bit? 

Sari: What I was getting at was that features never win people over. There has to be something else. There has to be a point of view. In our case with Sublime, it's not just about its functional utility as a tool to save anything interesting you come across; it's about the vibe, the community, the people that use it. This emotional connection and sense of identity are what truly drive consumer decisions.

The most human part of humanity is not our logic or use of reason, but the way we socially mediate the creation of meaning and value in arbitrary ways.

Elan: What I think is so interesting is that it's not just the look and feel of the product. It's all about how it makes you feel and the story behind it. Would you agree?

Sari: 100%. The difference is in: ‘I'm using this to accomplish a task’ vs. ‘This is something that I love and I'm going to tell everyone I know about it.’

About Sari Azout

Sari is the founder of Sublime. She was previously a partner at Level.vc where she spent over a decade building and investing in consumer brands. She writes a weekly Substack newsletter at sublimeinternet.substack.com

If you’d like to connect with Sari, DM her on Twitter or LinkedIn.